Healing is what happens when Pastoral Practitioners minister, enabling people to receive restoration to health of body and mind through God's great love and mercy. This restoration of health is part of what is meant by the "abundant life" which the Lord promised.

The Codex Committee on Food Labeling will meet May 9–13 in Québec City,
Canada, where members will review the Codex guidelines on labeling food. Among
the items for review are the Codex labeling standards for genetically engineered
foods.

The
Codex Alimentarius (Latin for “Food Code”) is a collection of
internationally adopted food standards, guidelines, codes of practice, and other
recommendations which supporters hope will become a global standard. The US is a
Codex Committee member country.

In preparation of the upcoming meeting in Canada, the US delegates held a
public meeting in Washington, DC, on April 25 to discuss their draft position
that they will present in Québec. ANH-USA attended that meeting—and the US
position is pretty dismal. The US draft position is open for public comment only
through May 2, so we are sending this newsletter out a little early.

Of particular interest is the US position on GE labeling. Codex currently
does not have any requirements for mandatory process labeling. US delegates said
that there is no need for GE labeling!

The US delegation adds that the “claimed right to know is ill-defined and
variable and in this respect could not be used by Codex as the primary basis of
decision-making on appropriate labeling.”

What is the difference between Codex and the EU harmonization of laws?

There is a great deal of confusion over the standards put forth by the Codex
Alimentarius and the recent EU “harmonization” of European regulations and laws,
and we thought a little background might be helpful.

The European Union has passed
legislation affecting natural health in order to “harmonize” (read: control)
laws across the EU. EU legislation comes in the form of both directives and
regulations. Directives come into effect once they have been incorporated into
the member state laws. Regulations come into force immediately across all EU
member states.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission, on the other hand, is an intergovernmental
body that sets guidelines and standards with the stated goal of
promoting “fair trade practices” and consumer protections in the global trade
for food. The Commission deals with every facet of food. Its guidelines are
not binding, but there is an implicit goal that member countries will modify
their own national laws based or benchmarked against these global standards that
have been set by the Codex Commission.

There are 27 member states in the European Union, but over 170 member
countries on the Codex Alimentarius Commission. There are over 30 committees
within Codex, each dealing with specific areas of food—and decisions are based
on consensus voting by member countries. The representatives of the member
countries are usually bureaucrats and not democratically elected officials.

The central problem is that Codex guidelines are usually influenced by big
corporate interests and often ignore both consumer interests and common sense.
This is evident in the extremely lax standards on GE labeling (even though most
of its member states are strongly in favor of GE regulation).

The EU process is not dissimilar from the Codex process. But it is a
different process, albeit shaped in the same model as Codex. The EU process is
further along than Codex, thus we can glean from EU developments much of what we
can expect from Codex. EU has adopted
extremely restrictive—one
might say ridiculous—standards on vitamins and supplements. For example, the
maximum strength permitted for a beta carotene capsule is the amount found in
half a large carrot, while that for selenium would be no more than what is
typically available in one-third of a Brazil nut. Because of Codex’s breadth,
and because the US has proven to be in lock step with Codex all the way, we
anticipate US support for similarly ridiculous and restrictive limits on dietary
supplement potency.

Take Action TODAY!

The US Codex Committee on Food Labeling (CCFL) only made its draft position
available on April 25—giving the public less than a week to respond. We need to
send in our comments TODAY, May 2, and ask the committee to revise its draft
position—a consumer’s right to know is an important standard. The US should be a
world leader, not an embarrassment on the world stage, supporting a bad
standard.

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO THE CCFL

Click
THIS LINK to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out
the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your
letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to
add your own comments to the letter.

We’d also love to hear your comments about this
article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages
below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the
FDA, etc.